Trump Moves to Delay Fraud Trial Until He’s President

Donald Trump’s lawyers moved on Friday to delay the Trump University fraud lawsuit from beginning later this month, claiming that the Republican is too busy overseeing the small matter of managing his transition from middling property manager to President of the United States.

Arguing before Gonzalo Curiel, the federal judge Trump accused of being prejudiced against him due to his Mexican heritage, Trump’s lawyers claimed that their client doesn’t currently have the time to face his accusers in the Trump University trial, who say they were duped into wasting tens of thousands of dollars on Trump’s allegedly worthless get-rich-quick real-estate course. The California case is one of two class-action fraud suits filed by former customers against the now-defunct Trump University.

“He’s turning, right now as we speak, to a mountain of challenges in
front of him, to get himself up to speed.”

A lawyer for Trump, Daniel Petrocelli, told reporters that the case is a “very difficult circumstance for a sitting president—more so, I would say, for a president-elect, because he’s turning, right now as we speak, to a mountain of challenges in front of him, to get himself up to speed,” according to The Washington Post. Petrocelli added that no president-elect had ever been in pending litigation before taking office, suggesting that Trump would have more time to testify after he gets settled in the White House.

A skeptical Curiel tendered that perhaps Trump could testify via video link, but rejected a second request that Trump’s comments on the campaign trail be excluded from evidence in the case.

There may be other reasons behind Trump’s move to delay the fraud case, besides scheduling. While the Supreme Court ruled in the 1994 case Clinton v. Jones that presidents are not immune to civil lawsuits filed prior to their assuming office, Justice Stephen Breyerargued that a president could, potentially, be immune if the suit would “significantly” interfere with his “ability to carry out his official duties.” If the president-elect is too busy to be involved with a civil trial right now, as his lawyers claim, imagine how busy he would be in his first 100 days in office.